The Guild fortress emerged from the mist like a wounded stone giant. There was no glory within those walls. Around the perimeter, the earth had been overturned into an endless series of fresh mounds. Etan, reopening his eyes through Tsuki’s, beheld the scene: hunched figures under the thin rain were digging, the metallic ring of spades against stone pacing an incessant funeral choir. A few bodies, wrapped in burlap sacks, awaited their turn on the edge of the mud.

  ?The Seven did not stop to look. This was their normality.

  ?When the heavy oak and iron gate creaked open, the smell hit Tsuki like a slap: it was a nauseating mix of sweat, corrective vinegar, and the sickly-sweet scent of gangrenous flesh.

  ?The great central hall, where adventurers once sat to toast and bargain for legendary quests, had been desecrated by necessity. The long oak tables no longer hosted maps or mugs; they had become makeshift operating tables covered in stained shrouds. Above them, alchemical lamps swayed, casting a tremulous, yellowish glow.

  ?Zobb immediately detached from the group. His lizard-like scales reflected the flickers of the flames as he approached a table where a man groaned.

  ?"Stop wasting your breath," the hybrid hissed, his forked tongue flickering nervously. With a fluid movement of his clawed fingers, he snatched a pair of pliers from a tray filled with bolts and bandages. "If you scream, the piston won't go in straight."

  ?Beside him, Lyra moved among the cots like an angel fallen into a trench. She took the hand of a soldier staring at the ceiling with glassy eyes, whispering words of comfort that sounded hollow in that temple of pain.

  ?Vallek walked down the center of the hall, his immaculate tunic looking like an insult to all that mud. He didn't look at the wounded; he looked at the logistics.

  ?"Clear table three," he ordered in a flat, emotionless voice. "I want the girl under the light. Now."

  ?Tsuki stood motionless in the center of that hell. Around her, the wounded—men and women with brass arms, reinforced wooden legs, and magical glass eyes—stopped their moaning for a moment. They stared. She was perfect. She was whole. In that butchery of spare parts, Tsuki looked like a silver divinity accidentally dropped into a flesh dump.

  ?Brak did not remove his armor. He approached a row of cots where the heaviest casualties waited to be moved. With a low grunt and the hiss of steam escaping his mechanical joints, he lifted an entire man—unconscious and missing both legs—as if he were a sack of grain. He carried him toward the back of the hall, where the screams were loudest, walking with a heavy step that made the iron basins on the tables rattle.

  ?Oros moved like gray smoke between the beds. He used no bandages. He leaned over soldiers trembling with terror, enveloping their heads in his cold mist. Etan, watching through Tsuki, noticed that wherever Oros passed, the laments ceased, replaced by an unnatural silence and wide eyes staring into the void. He was suffocating their pain by stealing their memories, or perhaps just laying a veil of oblivion over what they had seen.

  ?High above, among the beams blackened by lamp smoke, Kael was a frantic shadow. He appeared and disappeared along the catwalks, bringing flasks of alcohol, clean bandages, and new brass bolts to the operating tables. Every time he reappeared, his body seemed to have a stronger tremor, a "glitch" that left behind a scent of ozone and burnt flesh. He was the courier of this trench, the only one who could traverse the chaos in the blink of an eye.

  ?Vyx, however, did not lower her guard. She had climbed onto a stack of wooden crates near the entrance, her yellow eyes scanning not the wounded, but the shadows beyond the fortress’s broken windows. She kept toyed with the tip of an arrow, obsessively cleaning it on a corner of her cloak. To her, the Guild was not a hospital; it was a trap about to spring. Every so often, she looked down at Tsuki, measuring with her eyes the distance between the girl and the exit, as if calculating the value of that bounty against the lives of her comrades.

  ?Finally Lyra, whom Etan saw moving with a grace that clashed with the surrounding filth. She did not operate, but she held down the limbs of those being transformed. When Zobb cut or screwed, it was Lyra who sang under her breath, a sweet melody that drowned out the sound of the surgical saw. Her magic did not close wounds, but it kept the patient’s heart strong enough not to shatter under the pain of the graft.

  ?At the far end of the hall, where the moans of the wounded became a whisper stifled by the smoke of tallow candles, sat Gideon. He was not on a throne, but on a formless heap of ammunition crates and rusted armor pieces. Wrapped in a tunic the color of ash, Gideon kept his head tilted to the side. A thick leather blindfold, stained with blackish ointments, sealed his eyes, but his nostrils flared at every gust of wind that entered through the gate.

  ?Vallek stopped a few paces away, standing as rigid as a spear.

  ?"Gideon. We are back."

  ?The old man did not answer immediately. He passed his dry tongue over his lips, then emitted a sound that was half-rattle, half-laugh.

  ?"I smell the burnt ozone of Brak and the rusted iron of your blades," he croaked, his voice sounding like stones rolling down a well. "But there is another note in the wind, Vallek. A note that does not smell of mud, nor gangrene, nor oil."

  ?Vallek gestured, and Lyra led Tsuki forward until the girl stood just a breath away from the old man.

  ?"We found something strange, Old Man," Vallek said, his voice void of any emotion—a command disguised as a statement. "Vyx says the air around her vibrates the wrong way. She’s not a refugee, and she’s not a soldier. I want you to see her."

  ?Gideon leaned forward, his face inches from Tsuki’s. His hands, gnarled and stained by time, hung suspended in mid-air, his fingers vibrating as if trying to pluck the strings of an invisible harp.

  ?"You ask me to look at the invisible..." Gideon whispered, a shiver running down his arched back. "You bring me ash and ask if it burns. But this girl... she does not vibrate, Vallek. She is a hole in the world. She is a silver silence that devours the noise of everything else."

  ?Slowly, Gideon reached a finger toward Tsuki’s temple, stopping just before touching her.

  ?"Tell me, girl," he murmured with a sweetness that made the hair on Vyx’s arms stand up. "The heart I feel beating in there... is it truly yours, or are you just the shell for something else that is hungry?"

  ?Gideon remained with his finger suspended, the skin on his knuckles as taut as tissue paper. The silence in the Guild hall grew so heavy that the hiss of Brak’s steam sounded like a scream.

  ?From the darkness of Tsuki’s mind, Etan felt a cold that did not come from the girl’s body.

  ?"Tsuki... stay still. Do not think. Do not exist," Etan whispered, his voice choked with memory. "It’s him. Gideon. They brought me to him only once, as a child. He stared at me for hours without saying a word, trying to understand what I was. I thought he was dead... or that he had forgotten me."

  ?But Gideon had not forgotten.

  ?The old man took a step back, stumbling against a crate of bolts that overturned with a metallic crash. He didn't care. He brought his hands to the leather band over his eyes, pressing hard, as if trying to squeeze an image out of the darkness.

  ?"This... this vibration..." Gideon murmured, his voice a thread of wind among ruins. "I’ve felt it before. Only once. Many cycles ago, before the dust darkened the sun."

  ?Vallek stiffened, his gaze shifting from the old man to the girl. "What are you talking about, Gideon? She’s just a silver refugee."

  ?"No," the old man snarled, and for the first time authority returned to his curved spine. "She was no refugee. He was a boy. A small fragment of something that shouldn't have existed. He had the same taste as this void... the same smell of metal and stars."

  ?Gideon strained toward Tsuki again, his face twisted in a grimace of pure obsession.

  ?"Tell me, girl," he whispered, his fingers frantically searching the air near her neck. "Where have I felt this before?"

  ?Vyx shouldered her bow, her vertical pupils narrowed to slits. The atmosphere had changed: they were no longer in a refuge; they were in an interrogation cell.

  ?The air in the Guild hall was a dense mass of tallow smoke and the metallic smell of old blood. Gideon remained with his finger suspended a breath away from Tsuki’s skin, his gnarled arm trembling so hard it shook his ash-colored tunic.

  ?The silence didn't fall over the entire hall—the surgical saws continued to screech in the back and the wounded continued to rattle—but it expanded like an oil slick around the Seven’s table.

  ?Gideon threw his mouth open. His cracked lips moved vacantly for a moment, then a puff of air that tasted of dust emerged.

  ?"Etan!?"

  ?The name was not shouted. It was a strangled question, a recognition coming from the darkness of his sealed sockets.

  ?Vallek stiffened. The leather of his gloves creaked as he clenched his hands into fists at his sides. The leader’s eyes turned icy, planted on Tsuki’s motionless profile. He didn't know who Etan was, but he felt the old man’s terror vibrating in the floorboards.

  ?Vyx didn't wait. The hiss of the bowstring being pulled to its limit was a sharp, definitive sound. The arrowhead pointed straight at the girl's throat. Her vertical pupils were reduced to menacing slits.

  ?"Who is Etan, Old Man?" the Ranger hissed, her voice vibrating with a ferocity ready to explode. "Who is this Etan you feel in a white-haired slip of a girl?"

  ?Gideon didn't listen to her. He leaned in even further, thrusting his nose into the freezing air surrounding the girl. His fingers began to claw at the edge of the oak table, leaving deep gouges in the greasy wood.

  ?"It’s him, Vallek..." the old man exhaled, a drop of drool sliding down his chin. "Beneath this silver shell, there is no refugee. There is the blue-eyed shadow that has tormented me for so many years. The one that stared at me from the dark when I thought I was alone. He is here. He has returned."

  ?Tsuki spoke. Her voice was not Gideon’s croak, nor Vallek’s command. It was a clean, icy sound that seemed to come from another dimension.

  ?"Etan is afraid of you, old man," Tsuki said, without taking her eyes off the void. "He says your hands are cold and smell of ash. But I... I only feel that you are very, very fragile. And that your fear tastes delicious."

  ?Gideon let out a strangled sound and fell backward into his chair. It was like a signal for war.

  ?Vyx didn't wait for Gideon to finish settling. Her predatory instinct, honed by years of hunting in the wilds, exploded in a single, fluid motion.

  ?CLACK.

  ?The recurve wood snapped back with a sharp thud. The arrow took flight like a black bolt, covering the few meters separating her from Tsuki’s throat. It was a blink of an eye: the crude iron tip pierced the air, aiming straight for the jugular with the full force of the taut string.

  ?The impact did not produce the sound of tearing flesh.

  ?In the millisecond the icy metal touched the pale skin of the neck, reality seemed to cough. There was no blood. The iron tip crumbled, followed by the wooden shaft and the fletching. The very matter of the arrow denied its own form, disintegrating into a cascade of grayish dust and fine sand that slid down Tsuki’s collarbone.

  ?SHHH.

  ?Vyx stood motionless, the bow still vibrating in her hands and the string lashing against her forearm. Her yellow eyes were wide, fixed on the spot on Tsuki’s neck where there wasn't even a scratch, only a thin veil of dust falling to the floor.

  ?The silence that followed was more violent than the shot.

  ?"Enough!"

  ?Vallek’s command sliced through the air like a whip. The leader lunged forward, but not toward Tsuki. He grabbed Vyx’s arm as she, with a trembling hand, was already convulsively reaching for a dagger at her hip. His grip was brutal.

  ?"Stand down, Vyx! That’s an order!" Vallek roared.

  ?He had seen. If the arrow had become sand after flying meters, their swords would become smoke before they could even brush her.

  ?Tsuki hadn't moved an inch. She hadn't even raised her hands to defend herself. Slowly, she looked down at her shoulder where the remains of the arrow rested, then returned to staring into the void.

  ?"See?" Gideon whispered from the floor, his voice reduced to a hoarse sob. "I told you... she is not flesh. She is the end of everything we touch."

  ?Vallek ignored the old man. He stood before Tsuki, maintaining a safe distance, his hands open and clearly visible.

  ?"Now," he said to Tsuki, in a tone trying not to tremble. "You and the shadow inside you... you need to explain what you are. Before Vyx completely loses her mind."

  ?The jolt came suddenly, a violent shock originating from the center of Tsuki’s chest.

  ?The girl arched her back, but there was no table to support her. She staggered into the void, hands grasping at the air as a strangled moan died in her throat. Beneath the gray tunic, her bones emitted a dull crack, like dry branches snapping under the weight of snow. It was not a fluid movement; it was a revolt of the flesh.

  ?The shoulders, once slender, began to broaden with a painful slowness, straining the seams of the dress until they creaked. The graceful curve of the hips vanished, straightening into a masculine, lean, and angular line.

  ?Then the change reached the hair. Tsuki’s lunar white seemed to burn from within, retreating and darkening as if being reabsorbed. In a few moments, the silver mane shortened drastically, transforming into a messy mass of earthy brown hair, dull and soaked in sweat.

  ?Vyx leaped backward, nearly tripping over her own boots. The bow trembled in her hands, the arrow now forgotten on the ground among grains of sand. She stared at that shifting body with a near-sacred repulsion, her yellow pupils reduced to pinpricks.

  ?Gideon, from his chair, emitted a rattle. "The mask falls..." he croaked, his empty sockets pointed toward the center of the room. "See? Do you see the horror you’ve invited into our house?"

  ?Slowly, the face melted and recomposed. Tsuki’s porcelain features hardened; the jaw became square, the nose straighter and more severe. When the eyes reopened, the glacial blue was gone. In its place were Etan’s pupils, heavy with a millennial weariness.

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  ?Etan—now physically present, exhausted and trembling—tried to stay on his feet, but his legs gave way. He staggered, searching for a balance that new body didn't yet seem to accept. Drops of cold sweat beaded his forehead.

  ?He looked at Vallek, then turned his gaze to Gideon, still nailed to the chair in front of him.

  ?"Yes, Gideon," Etan said. His voice was deeper, cracked with fatigue, but firm. "It’s me. And as you see, even this shell cannot hide the rot you left on me."

  ?He turned to Vallek, ignoring Vyx, who seemed on the verge of collapsing from shock.

  ?"Vallek..." he murmured, trying not to faint. "My name is Etan. And if you want answers, you’d better tell your huntress to calm down. I don't know how much longer I can stay conscious after this."

  ?Etan stared at his own hands. They were no longer Tsuki’s slender, diaphanous fingers; they were masculine hands, larger, with knuckles reddened by the effort of transformation and veins pulsing under skin that was still too sensitive. For a man of his background, a bourgeois accustomed to order and control, that sudden nakedness and contact with the stale air of the Guild were unbearable. They were the symbol of his trauma, of flesh exposed and violated.

  ?"Someone..." Etan murmured, his voice vibrating with a subtle, almost obsessive anxiety. "Does someone have gloves? Please."

  ?It was a moment. Vallek didn't ask for explanations, didn't question the bizarre request of an exhausted shapeshifter. With a fluid and decisive movement, he pulled off his dark leather gloves and tossed them to him.

  ?The leather flew through the heavy air, landing between Etan’s trembling hands.

  ?Vyx gasped. Her yellow eyes widened and a shadow of pure pain, mixed with a burning rage, crossed her face. She had chosen those gloves herself; they were a gift of loyalty, perhaps something more—a piece of protection she had personally placed in her leader’s hands. Seeing Vallek part with them to give them to that anomaly was like taking a slap to the chest.

  ?But when Vallek’s hands remained bare, the breath stopped in everyone’s throat.

  ?They were a mass of shiny, purple scars. The skin appeared stretched, almost transparent in some places, marked by burns so deep the flesh seemed to have fused with the bone. There were no fingernails; in their place, only layers of callous and deformed tissue, silent testimony to a torture that would have killed an ordinary man.

  ?Etan looked up from Vallek’s sores to the man’s eyes. In that moment, the bond between the two tightened: the bourgeois trying to hide and the warrior who had nothing left to hide.

  ?"Thank you," Etan said, his voice suddenly regaining a note of firmness.

  ?He pulled on the gloves. The contact of the stiff, worn leather on his skin gave him back a sense of boundaries. He felt Vallek’s residual warmth infuse his fingers. It was as if armor had closed around his mind: his breath, previously labored and broken, became slow, rhythmic, calm. Lucidity began to flow like ice through his veins.

  ?He stood up fully, adjusting the gloves at his wrists with a meticulous, almost aristocratic gesture, despite the sweat and exhaustion.

  ?"Now," Etan said, looking at Vallek with a coldness that didn't belong to a refugee. "Let’s speak like civilized people. Gideon, stop trembling. I have no intention of staining these gloves with your blood, unless you force me to."

  ?Etan straightened his shoulders, feeling the weight of Vallek’s leather like an anchor holding him to reality. His breathing had become steady, almost cold.

  ?"My name is Etan," he said, and his voice was no longer a whisper, but the tone of a man accustomed to giving orders, purified of any trace of Tsuki’s fragility. "And if Gideon continues to scream, none of us will be able to understand what is happening outside these walls. And I assure you, that is the only thing that should interest you now."

  ?Gideon, seeing the boy’s calm and the body now openly challenging him, had a final breakdown. He struggled up from the chair, pointing a trembling, gnarled finger at Etan’s chest.

  ?"Monster! Blasphemer!" the old man shrieked, his voice breaking into a hysterical high note. "Don't listen to him! Look at his hands, look at his eyes! He’s an aberration! Vallek, release him! Kill him now!"

  ?[...] (The scene continues with Vallek’s nod and the comrades carrying Gideon away by the shoulders) [...]

  ?Vallek stepped forward, staying within a meter of Etan. His burned hands were still visible, naked and terrible.

  ?Vallek exchanged a quick glance with Vyx. No words were needed; with a slight movement of his chin, he pointed toward the hall door. The huntress narrowed her eyes in a sign of near-imperceptible assent—a silent promise of absolute surveillance.

  ?"Follow me," Vallek said, turning toward the stairs.

  ?The climb was an ordeal. Etan stumbled, his chest heaving with the effort of holding together the pieces of a body he no longer felt was his own. Every time Vallek reached out a hand to steady him as he saw his shoulder bump against the wall, Etan snapped away with a muffled snarl. He broke into a cold sweat, temples throbbing, but his gaze was a blade: he did not want to be touched. He would rather crawl on his elbows than suffer the contact of a stranger in that moment of shameful weakness.

  ?They reached the upper floor and entered a room that must have once been intended for officers but was now falling apart. A bed of rotting straw in the corner, a chair with a broken back, and a worm-eaten wooden table were the only furnishings. Vallek closed the door, isolating them from the rest of the world.

  ?Etan leaned against the wall, trying not to slip to the floor. Vallek’s leather gloves, still tight on his hands, seemed the only thing preventing him from falling to pieces.

  ?Vallek stopped in the middle of the room, his burned hands in plain sight. "What is that power?" he asked bluntly. "Gideon speaks of monsters, but I saw matter bend. That doesn't look like a gift one learns from books."

  ?Etan looked up, his brown hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. "It’s not a power," he replied bitterly. "It’s a curse. I was born with it. It’s a parasite that eats what it touches and, sometimes, it eats me too. I didn't choose to have this void inside me, Vallek."

  ?The Guild leader nodded slowly, then sat on the edge of the worm-eaten table. "We all carry weights we didn't choose."

  ?"Let’s talk about the city," Etan interrupted him, trying to regain lucidity. "How did it fall? Why didn't the Seven defend it? And where is the Regent?"

  ?Vallek looked at his own hands, palms missing nails and covered in shiny scars.

  ?"They came in the night. Without warning, without banners. The houses started burning before we even heard the first battle cry," Vallek recounted, his voice turning into a hoarse whisper. "There was no strategy, only ash. These..." he raised his hands, "I didn't get these fighting. I spent hours digging through glowing rubble, pulling lifeless bodies from collapsing houses. I tore men and children from the fire until the flesh began to peel off my own bones. The Regent? No one knows. He vanished in the smoke while we burned to save nothing."

  ?Etan stared at those sores, finally understanding why Vallek had given him the gloves without hesitation. Pain had made them equals in that bare room.

  ?Vallek cleared his voice, a sound that seemed to scrape the room’s bare walls. He shifted his weight on the broken table, never taking his eyes off Etan’s gloved hands.

  ?"And that girl?" he asked, his tone allowing no evasion. "Gideon called her a demon. I saw how she moved. I saw the void in her eyes. What is Tsuki to you?"

  ?Etan closed his eyes for a moment, letting his head fall back against the rotting wood of the wall. A rivulet of sweat trailed down his temple, disappearing into the collar of his tunic. When he answered, his voice had a note of tenderness that clashed with the hardness of his masculine face.

  ?"Tsuki... is not a mask, Vallek. She is like a newborn," he murmured, and for the first time his defense didn't seem calculated, but visceral. "She is pure, void of malice. She does not know the hatred that moves this world. She must be understood, guided. If you see her as a threat, it’s only because you cannot comprehend how fragile the balance holding her together truly is."

  ?Vallek raised a hand, cutting him off sharply. The gesture exposed the purple scars of his palm—a silent warning.

  ?"Spare me the poetry, Etan," the leader said, his voice dropping an octave, icy. "I’ve seen too many people die because of innocence. A child with a spear in his hand becomes a warrior the instant the tip brushes your throat. And that child, however pure he may be, can do as much harm as an expert assassin. Perhaps even more, because he doesn't know when to stop."

  ?The silence following Vallek’s sentence was broken only by Etan’s final collapse.

  ?His legs, which had held up on pure aristocratic pride, gave way. The thud of his back against the wall produced a dull, heavy noise. Etan didn't collapse like an empty sack; he slid slowly, the tunic fabric scraping against the raw wood, while his gloved fingers clawed uselessly at the air in search of support. He ended up on the floor, curled up among the dirty straw and dust, his breath reduced to an unconscious hiss.

  ?Vallek didn't move. He watched him slump with the same impassivity one observes a fallen enemy, his burned hands at his sides.

  ?The door burst open with a groan of rusted hinges. Vyx entered first, hand on her weapon’s hilt, followed by Lyra. The mage stopped for a moment, her clear eyes catching every detail: Etan’s body on the floor, the acrid smell of metamorphosis, and the strange tension vibrating between Vallek and Vyx.

  ?"Is everything all right?" Vyx asked, her voice cracked with suspicion.

  ?"Yes," Vallek replied, his voice flat. He turned to the mage. "Attend to him, Lyra. I want him alive and lucid. Bring him water and something to eat, and do not leave his bedside until we are finished. Vyx, you stay at the door. No one enters, for any reason."

  ?Lyra tightened her lips, a flash of disappointment crossing her face for a task so distant from her rank, but she knelt beside Etan without protest. As the mage began to examine the boy, turning her back on the rest of the room, Vallek took a step toward Vyx.

  ?It was a lightning-fast gesture, almost violent in its intensity. He grabbed her face and kissed her on the mouth with a fervor that tasted of desperation and command. Vyx gasped, her fingers digging into his arms before giving in. Vallek pulled away just enough for his heat to burn her skin.

  ?"Forgive me," he whispered in her ear—a promise that was also a chain. Then he turned and left, leaving Vyx to guard a man she hated and Lyra to tend a secret that could destroy them all.

  ?In the room's twilight, Lyra slid her fingers inches from Etan’s forehead. Her voice was a melodic whisper, an ancient formula to stabilize the pulse and induce restorative sleep.

  ?"Sleep and find your center..." the mage murmured.

  ?The "curse" reacted to Lyra’s enchantment with a silent violence. Under the coarse wool blankets, the man’s body contracted, shrinking with a sinister sound of bones repositioning. Etan’s broad shoulders vanished; his features became delicate and sharp. His brown hair changed color in an instant, becoming a cascade of liquid silver spreading over the pillow’s dirty straw.

  ?Lyra withdrew her hands, her face turning white. "No... what have I done?"

  ?Etan opened his eyes. Or rather, Tsuki opened her eyes. They were as blue as gemstones, icy and unnatural, but loaded with Etan’s furious awareness. She sat up with effort, feeling light and unstable. Vallek’s leather gloves, now enormous, slid ridiculously down her slender wrists, almost entirely covering the girl’s thin arms.

  ?At that moment, the door was thrown open. Vyx entered like a fury, her nerves still raw from Vallek’s kiss.

  ?She froze. The man was gone. In his place, on the straw bed, was a creature with silver hair and eyes of ice staring at her with inhuman intensity. And she was wearing Vallek’s gloves.

  ?Blood rushed to her face in a flash of blind rage. Fifteen-year-old jealousy exploded, fueled by the otherworldly beauty of that girl who seemed to have taken the guest’s place.

  ?"You..." Vyx hissed, her hand clutching the dagger’s hilt until her knuckles turned white. "Where is he? What did you do to him, you little silver viper? And why... why are you wearing his things?"

  ?"Vyx, wait! It’s a magical accident!" Lyra exclaimed, interposing herself awkwardly, waving her hands as if she could repel her companion’s fury with words alone. "It’s not her fault; I think my healing triggered a reaction..."

  ?"Move, Lyra!" Vyx screamed, her eyes fixed on Tsuki’s blue eyes. "Look at that face... she’s a demon! Do you think making yourself pretty and slipping into his gloves is enough to steal his place?"

  ?Etan, trapped in that tiny body, tried to speak. But the voice that emerged was a crystal flute—a pure note that horrified him. "Vyx, calm down. It’s me, Etan. Think, for once."

  ?"Don't you dare speak to me like that with that mouth!" Vyx growled, interpreting Etan’s calm as an insult to her authority. "I’ll tear that leather off your hands with my teeth if I have to!"

  ?Etan felt terror bite his stomach. In that body, there were no muscles ready to spring—only a fragility that made him feel naked under the huntress’s gaze of hatred. He could have reached into the Void, unleashed that unstable nature pressing in his chest, but the horror of disintegrating a human being paralyzed him. A rattle of pure fear, sharp and infantile, escaped his lips as he curled up against the corner of the room, sinking into the dirty, dusty straw.

  ?Vyx charged, the blade shining with a sinister light as she lunged toward the silver-haired figure.

  ?"No!" Lyra shouted, leaping forward to act as a human shield.

  ?The impact was messy—a tangle of cloth and limbs. Vyx tried to swerve at the last second to avoid hitting her companion, but the dagger’s tip traced a red furrow on the mage’s outstretched palm. Lyra groaned, clutching her hand as dark blood began to flow, staining the dry stalks on the ground.

  ?Vyx remained petrified for a second, staring at her friend’s blood. Then, instead of repenting, she turned her gaze toward Tsuki, eyes bloodshot with blind rage. "It’s your fault! If you weren't here, she wouldn't be hurt! I’ll kill you, demon!"